The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) currently allows food processors the ability to run no greater than 500 pounds of processed food in a sample run to verify processing settings before having to stop the equipment and either run another sample run at no greater than 500 pounds or run an operational run.
One component of many food processing steps includes a forming system which is effectively a press which presses a food product into a plurality of shaped cavities and then extracts those shaped food products at rates often exceeding 60 strokes a minute such as about 90 strokes a minute or more. If a mold has half a dozen cavities, one can quickly see that over 500 products per minute can be extracted from such a press. Often presses are run in parallel to provide products to a common transportation system for further processing downstream.
Current patty formers such as those made by FORMAX™ Industry often provide a 27 inch wide press platform at a mold station. On this press platform are two narrow spacers which have an approximate width of less than 2 inches each. A width of a mold plate sitting between the two spacers is at least 23 inches and has a number of cavities therein for operational use. However, when performing a 500 pound sample, the cavities relatively rapidly press out the 500 pounds This may prevent the operator from being able to adequately verify all the necessary settings of the remainder of the equipment in the food line both upstream and downstream. Such equipment may relate to application of seeding or other process upstream or in various downstream applications frying, cooking, battering or breading and/or other process.
Accordingly, a need exists to utilize the existing press equipment to provide a smaller quantity of food product per cycle of the press so that the 500 pound sample can be extended through a sample run.